A Community Look

Category: Founder

Fortress is a global manager in investment that manages $43.1 billion of assets. Fortress, the company, offers investment products, which serves as an alternative to other forms of investment. Fortress was founded in 1998. Gareth Henry is the executive

Fortress Investment.

Brazil could be the best place to invest in 2014. According to one of the largest hedge fund companies in the world, at least in the last weeks of this election, Brazil has offered the most exciting trading opportunities to this year. The Fortress Investment Group manages $ 63 billion.

Gareth’s Take on Brazil

Gareth Henry insists that the Brazilian currency has been the best bet this year. Elections in Brazil are expected, and the economy will be affected. Henry’s remarks echoed the comments of the fortress executive, Mike Novogratz, in early May. Gareth Henry informs that the bet is simple and that the victory of Brazilian President -Dilma Rousseff is not expected. Henry states that if the incumbent president loses the elections, the Brazilian assets will rally majorly. The rally might be experienced because there will be a potential shift in leadership.

Japan and Scotland are cited by Gareth Henry as good investments this year. Japan was among the biggest trades in the previous year. He believes the Abenomics will become stronger this year. He said that the Abenomics was referring to the stimulus measures taken by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In Scotland; recent turmoil in independent voting has created good business opportunities. At first, it did not exist, and there was a lot of uncertainty.

Henry states that in the next 12 months or more, investors should majorly focus on what is going on internationally when it comes to geopolitics and a change in politics.The bets that had been placed have not profited yet as of the flagship Fortress Macro Fund. The estimated fund loss is approximated to be 5.78 % as stated by the regulatory filing.

Bruno Fagali has recently posted an article on his blog regarding one of the largest rewards given by the SEC to whistleblowers. Two rewards were granted by the Securities and Exchange Commision to two people who reported and helped proves serious financial irregularities that were committed by Bank of America. Read more about Fagali on Crunchbase.

Three individual reports were made about Bank of America’s illegal financial activity. It turned out that only two of the reports made consisted of serious financial violations that were initiated by wealth management company Merril Lynch, and the activity continued after Merril Lynch purchased Bank of America.

Fagali reports that the first violation committed by Bank of America was using account holders money for secret and risky transactions. The SEC found that Bank of America used five million dollars of its account holders money from 2009-2012. The five million dollars generated fifty million dollars in profit for the bank. Bank of America consciously put account holders assets at risk for their own profit instead of protecting those assets.

Fagali reports that the second violation committed by Bank of America was to place account holders money in secret accounts that were placed in compensation burdens. For six years fifty-eight billion of account holders money was placed in reserve. This money could have been subject to claims of bank creditors, and at the time it was feasible to believe that the bank may have had to file for bankruptcy.

Fagali’s blogs clearly state that these actions violate Bank of America’s responsibility for consumer protection. Instead of complying with its legal duty to protect their account holders assets Bank of America put fifty-eight million dollars of their account holders assets at risk. Though the bank’s actions did not result in any losses to the account holder the bank is still liable for its actions. Learn more: http://fagali.jusbrasil.com.br/

Wes Edens is a well-known American entrepreneur, investor, and owner of sports team. He is the chairman of Fortress Investment Group, a leading alternative assets management company. Edens co-founded the company in 1998 alongside Peter Briger, Robert Kauffman, Randal Nardone, and Michael Edward. Since then, he has worked closely with other Fortress Leadership team members to grow the company into over $70 billion as the company’s worth.

Career before Fortress

The foundation of Edens’ career in business management originates from his Finance and Business Management Degree study at the Oregon State University. He graduated in 1984, started his career three years later at Lehman Brothers. Here, he was the Managing Director and Partner for six years. His proceeded to the BlackRock Company, again, acting as the Managing Director and Partner for the company’s Asset Investors Division. He stayed at BlackRock until 1997, when he had gained adequate knowledge to start his own company.

Role at Fortress Investment Group

As one of the Fortress founders Wes Edens saw the company become the first buyout firm to open for public trades. The company’s initial opening to public trades began in 2007 and had shares worth 600 million US dollars sold to the public two years later. In the same year (2009) Edens started co-chairing the Fortress Group Board of Directors.

During the Subprime Mortgage Crisis, Edens assisted in the resurgence of Fortress’ stock price through supreme lending. He also oversaw the company’s focus to expand its management reach to manage assets in publicly traded investment and private equity. Wes Edens focus at Fortress has been in financial services, real estate, infrastructure, media, and healthcare companies.

He also catalyzed Fortress purchase of Springfield Financial Services, outweighing ownership of all other Springfield investors, with a 2010 $124 million investment. The investment yielded results – five years later, Fortress gained at least 27 times its original investment. Wes Edens also chairs a mortgage lender Nationstar Mortgage, a company that Fortress acquired in 2006.

Sports Team Ownership

Wisconsin-based team Milwaukee Bucks was the first sports investment by Edens. He partnered with Marc Lasry to purchase the team at the cost of 550 million dollars in 2014. He promised to build a new sports ground for the team in Wisconsin.

Other Ventures

Wes Edens is a savvy investment executive. Other than co-owning the Milwaukee Bucks and the many assets managed by his company, his current interest is expanding Brightline. This private high-speed train already connects Miami and Fort Lauderdale and has possibilities of expanding to other cities like Chicago.